At the end of ‘Other Useful Numbers’, Tracy, the
narrator, says “at least that’s how I remember it.”
Tracy, a bed-hopping, kleptomaniac lost soul who at the start of
the book “can’t see beyond [her] next packet of cigarettes”, has been on a journey,
both
external and internal, searching for clues that might lead her to her
missing ex-lover, Anita.
But the clues never quite match up and her memories have holes in
them and are unreliable – shockingly so, it turns out.
Sarah Broughton’s first novel is a story about loss and
discovery, beautifully observed and achingly funny, the narrative woven
into a 1980’s backdrop - the dole offices, the gender politics, Greenham
common, Blankety Blank and
Neighbours on the telly. Other
characters meander in and out of Tracy’s life; the monogamous Heather –
“In fact the more monogamous Heather becomes, the more frequently we
sleep together”; Mike, who she only contacts when she needs something,
and who will do anything for her even though she doesn’t sleep with him;
Jill, who is scarred by unimaginable pain after her ex-husband took her
children to Australia when she left him for a woman; Elaine who runs an
eccentric corner shop with an “identity crisis”
– “you can… [come] in for a bottle of washing up liquid [and go]
home with a garden spade”; her father and older sister, as distant and
unknown as strangers. But
although she moves through the lives of so many people, Tracy is always
looking over their shoulders, always searching for the lost Anita.
Tracy casts a wonderful, sardonic eye on the world
around her – the people, the music, the monotony of her dead end jobs,
the loneliness of being in a crowd.
The narrative moves between past and present, as she remembers
fragments of her relationship with Anita, and further back, fragments of
her family life, trying to find out who she is and where she fits in.
“Life is a crack in the pavement I will fall through if I don’t
concentrate” she says.
Only when Tracy discovers what she has probably been
searching for all along can the pieces of her life slot into place.
When she ends by saying “At least that’s how I remember it” she
is accepting, at last, that the pieces cannot and will not ever truly
slot together, that for some things there are no answers – and that
actually that’s ok. There is
no happy sunset ending, but Tracy has found something she didn’t even
know she’d lost. “Behind
every door is another door, and another – and there is only the walking
through to be done about it” she says.
Other Useful numbers is almost filmic in its beautiful,
precise descriptions of the characters and the world they inhabit.
This is a compulsive, painful, bitter-sweet, laugh-out-loud
novel; it’s a must-read, and Sarah Broughton is a talent to watch out
for.
Catrin Clarke writes for film, television and radio.